【英文原著类】Christ in Flanders(弗兰得斯的基督).pdf

Christ in Flanders
Christ in Flanders
by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Ellen Marriage
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Christ in Flanders
DEDICATION
To Marcelline Desbordes-Valmore, a daughter of Flanders, of whom
these modern days may well be proud, I dedicate this quaint legend of
old Flanders.
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Christ in Flanders
Christ in Flanders
At a dimly remote period in the history of Brabant, communication
between the Island of Cadzand and the Flemish coast was kept up by a
boat which carried passengers from one shore to the other. Middelburg,
the chief town in the island, destined to e so famous in the annals of
Protestantism, at that time only numbered some two or three hundred
hearths; and the prosperous town of Ostend was an obscure haven, a
straggling village where pirates dwelt in security among the fishermen and
the few poor merchants who lived in the place.
But though the town of Ostend consisted altogether of some score of
houses and three hundred cottages, huts or hovels built of the driftwood of
wrecked vessels, it nevertheless rejoiced in the possession of a governor, a
garrison, a forked gibbet, a convent, and a burgomaster, in short, in all the
institutions of an advanced civilization.
Who reigned over Brabant and Flanders in those days? On this point
tradition is mute. Let us confess at once that this tale savors strongly of the
marvelous, the mysterious, and the vague; elements which Flemish
narrators have infused into a story retailed so often to gatherings of
workers on winter evenings, that the details vary widely in poetic merit
and incongruity of detail. It has been told by every generation, handed
down by grandames at the fireside, narrated night and day, and the
chronicle has changed plexion somewhat in every age. Like some
great building that has suffered many modifications of essive
generations of architects, some sombre weather-beaten pile, the delight of
a poet, the story would drive mentator and the industrious
winnower of word